What do your hands touch?
Is it sand-colored and elastic?
Is it a cloak to hide our similarities
or just a straitjacket with nerve endings?
Is it protective
or punitive?
When your hands massage and stretch it
does it fall just short of racial tension?
When do your hands decide that it is okay
that the coast is clear
that those are not live electrical wires
but tiny acres of untouched flora just begging
to be colonized?
Where do your hands learn their poses?
Fingers splayed, or in tight military formation
Gripping and relaxing, constricting and
asking questions I think I am
supposed to answer
But millennia of eyes lowered and heads bowed remind me that
nothing bad can happen if you
keep your mouth closed
How tightly do your hands clasp each other in prayer
just minutes after whispering fetishes to my pores?
Do they bristle like your taste buds reacting
to my mother’s cooking?
And why do they recoil, suddenly hesitant?
Is that tenderness or apprehension?
Is that caution
or condescension?
Who do your hands touch?
That is not important.
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